The University of Barcelona (UB) in Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) is listed as the first Spanish university in the 2021 edition of the QS World University Rankings, in which it holds the 183d world position among more than 1,600 higher education institutions.
Among the Spanish universities, the University of Barcelona is followed by the Autonomous University of Madrid (200), the Complutense University of Madrid (206), the Autonomous University of Barcelona (213), the University of Navarre (252) and Pompeu Fabra University (287).
Regarding indicators, the University of Barcelona stands out in academic reputation, an indicator in which it gets the 86th position globally. The QS World University Rankings, apart from academic reputation, which accounts for 40%, and employer reputation, accounting for 10%, measures scientific citations per faculty (20%), and faculty/student ratio (20%), the internationalization faculty ratio (5%) and international student ratio (5%).
According to the QS World University World Rankings 2021, the top universities are the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford University and Harvard University.
The UB, within the 0.7% of the top universities worldwide
The UB holds the top position in Spain in the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR). It specifically holds the 133rd position worldwide in this ranking, which analyses 20,000 universities. The UB would then be among the 0.7% of the top universities worldwide.
The following Spanish universities appearing in the ranking are the Autonomous University of Barcelona (196th position), the Complutense University of Madrid (229), the Autonomous University of Madrid (280) and the University of Valencia (289).
At a global scale, the first positions of the ranking are held by Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford University, University of Cambridge and University of Oxford.
This ranking uses indicators related to both teaching and research, around four fundamental aspects: quality of education-measured by the number of former students who received major academic distinctions-; alumni employability, that is the amount of former students who have high positions in international companies; quality of the teaching and research staff, measured according to the number of academicians who have received major academic distinctions; and research performance. The UB stands out in the latter, in which it obtains the 67th position worldwide.
